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axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Blindeye posted:

I probably should write up one on Taft, especially since he's perennially on my list of "least evil" US presidents. Who knew not wanting to be president at all might make you less prone to delusions of grandeur?

I would also really like to read this as all I know about him was that he was real fat and he and Teddy Roosevelt played spoiler to each other and let Woodrow Wilson win in 1912.

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Blindeye
Sep 22, 2006

I can't believe I kissed you!

axeil posted:

I would also really like to read this as all I know about him was that he was real fat and he and Teddy Roosevelt played spoiler to each other and let Woodrow Wilson win in 1912.

Basically he was a surprisingly thoughtful person for his time; he often provided public statements only if he personally felt knowledgeable, for example. While conservative, he was fairly self-consistent and extremely anti-trust, moreso than Roosevelt because he felt there was no such thing as a good trust and competition required real choices. He also was known to generally be supportive of workplace safety and workers' rights though he didn't like the progressives because he was afraid of commies.

His administration of the Phillipines as Governor was notable for his pushing hard for Phillipine self-governance and for not applying tariffs to their goods as a US territory because he sincerely wanted them back on their feet and made an independent nation. Basically he saw them not as a colonial holding but rather as his charge, being a custodian until they had the infrastructure to be free.

His main blind spot was his immense fear of socialism, but he was a man of his time and feared a slippery slope from progressivism.

Someone mentioned how Hoover would have been a good president if there were no crises, and Taft is an example of what that kind of presidency looks like: low-key, competent, but generally focused on stabilizing existing institutions and curbing excesses.

Krispy Wafer
Jul 26, 2002

I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat

Grimey Drawer
Taft also went on to be a Supreme Court Justice. He probably had the most productive post-Presidency of anyone, even Carter.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich
taft also got ripped on constantly for being fat and often gave as good as he got

quote:

Taft's size made him an imposing presence:

"He was fat, but he had the frame that carries weight with an effect of majesty, of the sort that primitive men, and even modern men in the average, like to see in their kings and leaders."

"He looks like an American bison, a gentle, kind one."

"It is good to see Big Bill Taft enter a room after a number of other men. He reminds you of a great battleship following the smaller vessels, coming into port with her brass bright and plowing deep. You feel that when a giant is so amiable it would be impolite not to agree with him; and, moreover, it would be unwise, considering that the power of the United States is behind him. Foreigners have observed that he looked like the United States personified whatever they mean by that. With his smile and his inflexible purpose he has managed to keep the gun covers on when a smaller man might have had to take them off. Besides, he does give the impression that if he did begin firing it would be in broadsides to the bitter end; and that helps in any negotiation."

More often, however, Taft's size made him the target of jokes. "They made infinite jests about his fatness -- and no one heard or repeated the jokes with greater savor than Taft himself. Making a speech he would pause, with an effect of suspense, just long enough to intensify the audience's attention; then throughout the immense torso and up into the broad features would run little tremors and heavings, rising to a climax in a rumbling chuckle as infectious as only a fat man could achieve, and Taft would tell a story in which the point was, as he would say in an engaging falsetto, 'on me.'"

"While he was in the Philippines, disturbing reports about his health caused Secretary of War Root to send a cabled inquiry. Taft cabled back that he was perfectly all right -- he had just finished a twenty-five-mile horseback ride and was feeling fine. Root read that, smiled, and sent off another cable of solicitude: 'How is horse?'"

"Justice Brewer of the Supreme Court said that 'Taft is the politest man in Washington; the other day he gave up his seat in a street-car to three ladies.'"

"One day I was in the President's private room ... when [good-natured Senator] Chauncey Depew came in. ... After we had talked serious matters for a few minutes and were about to depart, Mr. Depew stepped up to Taft and, taking liberties that I never would have thought of taking with a president, said to him, putting his hand on Mr. Taft's big frontal development: 'What are you going to call it when it comes, Mr. President?' It was just about that time when Mr. Taft was beginning to have some difficulty with [Theodore] Roosevelt, and he quickly responded: 'Well, if it's a boy, I'll call it William; if it's a girl, I'll call it Theodora; but if it turns out to be just wind, I'll call it Chauncey.'"

"A lady calling on him in the interest of her son's career in the army, had received the assurance she wished, and, departing, said, as the highest feminine conception of showing appreciation: 'Mr. Taft, you're really not near so fat as they say you are.'"

After Taft lost the election of 1912, Yale University sent a man to the White House to suggest that Taft accept a Chair of Law at the University. Taft replied that a Chair would not be adequate, but that if the University would provide a Sofa of Law, "it might be all right"

Taft once sat down in a theater and found his bulk firmly locked into the too-narrow seat. He remarked to his brother: "Horace, if this theater burns, it has got to burn around me"

As a Yale professor, Taft had his own specially-widened seat in the front row of the main university auditorium. The audience once saw him come down the aisle "accompanied by a protesting usher, who departed, apparently satisfied, after a brief whispered colloquy." Taft settled into his seat, then said to the woman next to him, "I lost my ticket, but was fortunately able to establish my identity by the breadth of my beam and the corresponding breadth of this seat"

Taft was the first President to use automobiles regularly. There was a debate in Congress whether money should be appropriated to acquire autos for the White House. One Congressman remarked during the debate: "The incoming President [Taft] proposes to abandon horses for reasons that the gentleman well knows: he does not wish to violate the law against cruelty to animals"

Theodore Roosevelt remarked that Taft should give up riding because it was doing him no good and because it was "cruelty to the horse"

As Secretary of War, Taft once got stuck in fresh asphalt "like a giant Stegosaurus in a tar pit". Taft also got stuck in a leather chair on a hot day, held in place by perspiration.

Taft and his wife visited Japan in 1900. "On account of his unusual proportions [Taft was] an object of tremendous interest to the Japanese." For example, at dinner with high-ranking Japanese officials "the mammoth American attempted in vain 'to achieve the squatting position.' ... Finally a Japanese politely rushed out of the room and returned with a padded stool for Taft. For the rest of the evening he 'looked majestically' on the rest of the party. During his visit, Taft discovered that the Japanese enjoyed looking at him as much as he did at them."

In one remote Japanese village, Taft had to take a ricksha from the railroad station to his hotel, no other transportation being available. When Taft got in, "the unfortunate coolie to whom it belonged began to utter strange sounds. He rolled his eyes and gesticulated frantically until he prevailed upon a second man to help him in propelling his unaccustomed burden. But even then his excitement did not abate. As they approached the first rise in the road some of the villagers along the way, attracted, no doubt, by the coolie's weird cries, came out to stare and, as usual, remained to laugh. The little 'ricksha man began chattering and grimacing at all of them and kept it up until he had enlisted the services of at least half the population of the village to help him in attaining the crest of the hill."

On a visit to Hong Kong, Taft's sedan chair, borne by coolies, had collapsed under his weight. For Taft's second visit the American Consul General in Hong Kong took care to prevent a recurrence. "He solemnly contracted with one Yu Wo, a chair builder of the city, to fashion a sedan which would be amply strong. The documents in the case were duly forwarded to the State Department at Washington and released for publication in New York":

I, the undersigned, Yu Wo of 15B Wellington Street agree to make a sedan chair for the American consul general. . . . This chair is to be used to carry the American giant, the Honorable William Howard Taft. Said Taft being one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the American Wai Wu Pai [Imperial Cabinet], it would obviously discredit this nation if the chair should disintegrate. . . . To avert international complications of this sort, I, Yu Wo, assert my skill as a chairmaker. It shall be reinforced at all weak points. . . . The shafts shall be of double diameter. The body itself shall be of eventful width. ... Red cloth shall adorn the seat of the chair and gleaming brass look defiantly out to a point that unconsciously, fokis, amahs and dealers in rice shall say: "Certainly this nation of the open door that has so long befriended the Middle Kingdom is a great power. The consul general may have the use of the chair October 11 and 12, 1907, after which the chair belongs to me, with the understanding that if ex-President Cleveland, also reputed to be of heroic size, tours the world, the consul general shall direct his steps to my shop. . . . With such precautions do I safeguard the dignity of a friendly power and contribute an honest chairmaker's part in preserving the Peace of the East."

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Ok, so now that I actually have time to write my LBJ effortpost, I'm thinking I might concentrate on the years 1960-1964 or so, where he was elected Vice President, languished in the job during Kennedy's tenure, then how he reacted to getting the job and his grand vision for the Great Society.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
All right, it's the moment y'all have been waiting for.

Lyndon Baines "Jumbo" Johnson, 36th President of the United States



I'm going to preface this by saying that if you have not read Robert Caro's four-part biography of LBJ, please do so. It's an absolute masterpiece.

Johnson's Presidency is often thought of in one of two ways:

1) The great deal of good he did for US domestic policy. Johnson's Presidency saw the birth of Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and perhaps most important, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He revolutionized how we deal with poverty and lack of opportunity in this country and he more than tripled the amount of federal money that went to helping the poorest among us in his 5 years in office.

2) Vietnam. For all that Johnson accomplished domestically, his legacy is forever stained by his stubbornness and unwillingness to accept that America had failed in Vietnam. His continued insistence on doubling down on failed military policy, his tendency to not ask his commanders for their real opinions about the situation on the ground, and his insistence on throwing an entire generation of young men into that meat grinder was borne out of a belief that Kennedy had not delivered when it came to Vietnam. He, Johnson, would succeed where Kennedy failed. It was his undoing and it kept him from seeking a second elected term.

To truly understand Lyndon Johnson, though, it's important to know how he got where he was.

Early Political Life

Lyndon Johnson's early life is dotted with instances where he was exposed to politics--whether it was when he accompanied his father to the Texas Legislature (Sam Ealy Johnson was a member of the Texas State Legislature for a total of ten years) or serving as chief legislative assistant to Congressman Richard Kleberg. He first ran for political office himself in 1937, in a special election for Texas' 10th Congressional District. Doing this allowed him to get acquainted with the inhabitants of Texas Hill Country, and it gave him a lifelong appreciation for the problems that they faced, including the abject poverty that many of them (including himself, for a while) lived in.

In 1941, he saw an opportunity to advance himself and ran in a special election for the United States Senate in Texas. His opponent was this guy:



W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel was a former radio personality and the current Governor of Texas.

As you know, with the exception of Ann Richards, Texas has a long history of electing unqualified retards to the governor's chair, and O'Daniel was no exception. His claim to fame was a band he was in called the Light Crust Doughboys. These guys featured regularly on O'Daniel's afternoon radio show, and their signature song was called "Please, Pass The Biscuits, Pappy", hence the nickname. He was utterly unqualified for the job, but, y'know...Texas.

Anyway, this election is significant because of how it ended. Johnson led in the polls AND in the vote count until late at night on election day. Here's the thing: in Texas at that time, vote counts were largely controlled by really powerful ward bosses. It was about as corrupt as you could possibly get. Hispanics and poor farmers more or less voted how the bosses wanted, since the ballots weren't exactly secret. Even then, vote counts tended to be fudged in the direction of whichever candidate had bought the boss' support.

And Lyndon Johnson had failed to reckon with one fact--never, never, never, NEVER make the vote counts public until the state's certified them, because when his campaign manager, John Connally, did so, he essentially told O'Daniel's people how many votes they needed to buy.

So Johnson had to watch, helplessly, as the "official" counts slowly began to swing back towards O'Daniel...and eventually, O'Daniel beat Johnson in the primary by 1,311 votes out of almost 400,000 cast. Since the primary was more or less tantamount to election, O'Daniel coasted to victory and Johnson had to go back to the House.

He, ah, did not take it well. It was the only election Johnson ever lost, and it was so demoralizing that he actually considered quitting politics for a while. Obviously he didn't, but he swore that he would never be outmaneuvered again like that. Why is this important? Well...

Election of 1948

1948. Harry Truman is running for reelection and faces certain defeat (Spoiler alert: [extremely Ron Howard voice] He didn't.). Pappy O'Daniel's Senate tenure had been, shall we say...less than stellar, and he quit to go back to his radio show. Consequently, the seat was open once more, and Johnson threw his hat in the ring.

Problem was, this time Coke Stevenson, yet another sitting governor of Texas, was his opponent.



The small grin on his face in this photo is no doubt due to the fact that he's watching a black man get beaten up, because Stevenson was a horribly racist reactionary shitheel. When Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948, Stevenson called it "a threat to our democracy". He was a vocal opponent of anti-lynching laws and a virulent segregationist.

That said, Stevenson was popular, and unlike Pappy O'Daniel he was competent and devoted to the job. So Johnson had a fairly uphill climb for this one. Nevertheless, he worked himself to the bone, campaigning all over the state, and on Election Day he was neck-and-neck with Stevenson.

What happened next varies, depending on who you talk to. What we do know is that for most of the night, Stevenson had a small lead on Johnson while the votes were counted. By the end of the night, Stevenson had achieved a plurality, but not a majority (due to the third candidate in the race, former State Rep George Peddy). As a result, the runoff election was held a week later with Stevenson and Johnson as the only candidates.

At the end, Johnson was declared the winner...by 87 votes.

The reason we're talking about this, however, is the fact that the air was thick with allegations of voter fraud made by the Stevenson people against the Johnson campaign. Rumors abounded, for example, that John Connally, once again LBJ's campaign manager, had ordered that 202 sequential ballots in Precinct 13 of Jim Wells County be filled out for voters who had not cast ballots that day. Further examination of these ballots revealed that the names on them were in alphabetical order and all of them were filled out with the same ink.

This article from the NY Times goes into greater detail about "Landslide Lyndon"'s election to the Senate.

Robert Caro, author of the 4-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a proponent of the stolen election theory. According to Caro, 10,000 votes were stolen in Bexar County alone. This theory is bolstered with the knowledge of the fact that Johnson had bought the support of Bexar County boss George Parr, so fixing vote totals would have been as easy as picking up the phone. This picture still survives, lending more credence to the idea that Parr's minions were responsible for the fluctuations in the vote counts:



But, stolen or not, the Democratic Party in Texas upheld Johnson's primary victory, and he coasted to victory over his Republican opponent. Lyndon Johnson had made it to the United States Senate, where he was promptly dubbed "Landslide Lyndon".

Part 2 is coming.

Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Mar 27, 2018

axeil
Feb 14, 2006
Awesome! Adding to the OP.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Part 2: Hello, Lyndon, Well Hello, Lyndon

You should totally listen to that song, it's as catchy as any of the ones Sinatra wrote for Kennedy.

Lyndon Johnson was riding high. He had just been elected to the Senate, and he was one step closer to achieving his ultimate goal: the Presidency.

His early Senate career was rather unremarkable, save for one fact: it was when he was introduced to this guy:



He's a bit older in this picture than he was when Johnson met him, but that is Bobby Baker, the twenty-year-old chief telephone page in the Senate. That toothy smile hides the fact that Baker would gladly kill you, your mother, your dog, and your dog's mother if he thought it would help advance his boss' career.

Senator-elect Johnson called him up a few days after he was certified the winner in Texas, and said "Mr. Baker, I understand that you know where all the bodies are buried in the Senate." Even at the tender age of twenty Baker had a formidable reputation as a fixer. In fact, it's what would get him in trouble a few years down the road, but we're not there just yet. Johnson and Baker's relationship is important, however, because it's what allowed LBJ to rise so quickly through the ranks.

Let's get one thing straight: before Johnson, the caucus leaders in either party were afterthoughts. The position was largely ceremonial and held little in the way of power. There's a reason that most people, if asked to name the Majority or Minority Leader for either caucus before Johnson, really kinda can't.

But, much as he had done in other aspects of his life, Johnson sought to take something perceived as very little and make a LOT out of it. Being Dick Kleberg's legislative assistant and head of the Little Congress had taught him that. You might be wondering, however, how Johnson learned everything he knew. Well, it was mostly due to the fact that this guy basically adopted him:



Under the tutelage of his Senate mentor, the venerable Georgia Democrat Richard Russell, Johnson devoured the Senate rulebook. He learned every trick, every arcane parliamentary rule, and every stall in the book.

Thing is, Johnson had bigger ambitions. So did Russell, but they differed in one key way: Johnson was willing to change to get what he wanted. He had started his career as a New Deal Democrat, but to get elected to the Senate, he cozied up to Texas oil barons, supported anti-union legislation, and opposed civil rights bills. He knew that Texas had become much more conservative in the wake of the oil boom.

Russell, however, was unwilling to do any such thing. He wanted to be President, but he would not for any reason compromise on his view that segregation was vital to the South's way of life. Yes, it's incredibly lovely, but Russell believed it with all his heart, and it cost him the Democratic nomination for President in 1952 when he threw his hat in the ring. It signified the Democratic Party's shift towards its pro-civil rights wing and the beginning of the end for the Dixiecrats. But again, I get ahead of myself.

In 1950's midterms, both the Senate Democratic caucus leader AND the majority whip lost their reelection bids. I know, right? If that happened today, can you imagine the loving headlines?

Democrats chose as their new leader Sen. Ernest McFarland (D-AZ), but they turned to none other than Lyndon Johnson as their new minority whip (Democrats had lost control of Congress in 1950, too. Harry Truman was, like, suuuuuuuuuuuper unpopular.)

In 1952, McFarland's brief tenure as Leader came to an abrupt and sticky end when he, too, lost his bid for reelection. Jesus.

Johnson, as majority whip, urged Richard Russell to seek the position, but Russell refused. Consequently, Johnson asked Russell to return the favor and support him for Minority Leader. Overcoming an insurgent challenge from Sen. James Murray (D-MT), Johnson was elected to the post, and two years later when Democrats won back the Senate, he became the youngest Majority Leader in history.

With the exception of those first few years of his Presidency, Johnson's years as Senate Majority Leader were probably the happiest and most productive of his career. John Connally does him more justice than I can, I think. He described Johnson as

quote:

...cruel and kind, generous and greedy, sensitive and insensitive, crafty and naive, ruthless and thoughtful, simple in many ways yet extremely complex, caring and totally not caring; he could overwhelm people with kindness and turn around and be cruel and petty towards those same people; he knew how to use people in politics in the way nobody else could that I know of.

The Senate gave Johnson that chance to wheel, deal, cajole, arm-twist, and threaten people into getting legislation passed that he wanted passed. It was a talent that would prove invaluable as President.

More to come in Part 3, or if I feel up to it an extension of Part 2.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006
More excellent content! Added to the OP.

skeleton warrior
Nov 12, 2016


If you find LBJ's story interesting so far, you really need to stop here and go watch the HBO version of All The Way, with Bryan Cranston as LBJ, Frank Langella as Richard Russell, and Todd Weeks as a Bobby Baker stand-in.

It's ostensibly about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but it's actually an amazing character study of LBJ.

Instant Sunrise
Apr 12, 2007


The manger babies don't have feelings. You said it yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3GT9UN7nDo

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Part 3: Lyndon Johnson Orders Some Pants For His Bunghole

PREVIOUSLY, ON JUSTICE LEAGUE: UNLIMITED....

Lyndon Johnson has just been chosen as the youngest Majority Leader in Senate History, and he has become one of the most powerful figures in Washington.

Johnson knew, however, that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower was immensely popular. Eisenhower had beaten back a challenge for the ideological direction of the Republican Party in 1952 when he bested Senator Robert Taft for the nomination, and the former Supreme Allied Commander had been overwhelmingly elected to the Presidency in the fall. Consequently, Johnson chose to work within the system and cooperate with Eisenhower on foreign policy matters, as well as finding common ground in opposing figures like Joe McCarthy and his Communist witch hunt.

Then he had a heart attack.

Yup. In 1955, Johnson suffered the first of FOUR heart attacks he'd have during the course of his life. Motherfucker smoked 60 loving CIGARETTES A DAY, roughly a 3-pack-a-day habit. Add to that his fondness for Cutty Sark scotch (he drank about two-fifths every night), and it's small wonder that he nearly loving died. To his credit, he took his doctors' advice to heart: he quit smoking, lost some weight, and he tried to work on delegating more of his work in the Senate, appointing Sen. George Smathers (D-FL) as floor leader in his absence. Everyone in the caucus knew, though, who the real power was behind everything that happened, thanks largely in part to Bobby Baker, who had earned the nickname "Little Lyndon". According to his official Senate biography:

quote:

Although the Democratic whip, Montana Senator Mike Mansfield, tried to move legislation along, Democratic Secretary Bobby Baker would circulate through the chamber advising senators to stall because "Johnson wants this kept on the burner for a while." When Johnson returned he would insist on passing things in a rush: "We've got to get this drat thing done tonight!" By letting measures pile up, sufficient pressure would have built up to pass everything in short order. "Who can remember," asked one journalist, "when one legislator so dominated Congress?"

Civil Rights Bill of 1957

This is perhaps the crowning jewel of Johnson's time in the Senate. It was the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction and it helped Johnson break the mold of "just anothern Southern Democrat". Now, I know that you have probably heard arguments about Johnson not actually giving a drat about civil rights and only looking to feather his nest, but evidence would suggest that isn't entirely the case. Again, from his official Senate bio:

quote:

...those closest to him believed that he also felt genuine compassion for African Americans, for the poor, and for the disadvantaged. He spoke often of the hardships of his own childhood, and those memories seemed to inspire him to achieve something significant with his life. "Nobody needed to talk to him about why it's important to get ahead," George Smathers commented. "He was preaching that all the time to everybody."

He knew hardship, and he knew poverty. The Texas hill country and the poverty he'd grown up in made him want to make sure no American, black or white, ever had to struggle through it.

...gently caress, that's right, we were talking about the civil rights bill. Anyway, this thing was born originally in the Republican caucus, but it never, ever would have gotten to Eisenhower's desk without Johnson. He threaded the needle between northern liberals (who felt the bill lacked teeth due to its anemic enforcement measures) and southern conservative Democrats (who basically regarded anything on civil rights to be an assault upon their way of life and fought tooth and nail to kill it). Somehow, he convinced Richard Russell's Southern Democrat bloc not to filibuster while simultaneously convincing liberals such as Joseph Rauh, Jacob Javits, and Hubert Humphrey that the deal they were getting was the best they could get at the time.

I know, right? When people talk about LBJ's ability to work Congress, this is what they're talking about. How did he do it, you ask?

He used what people called "the Johnson treatment." Behold its glory in four panels:



No, it's not a loss.jpg edit, dumbasses. Here's a written description that does it better justice:

quote:

“The Treatment” could last anywhere from ten minutes or four hours and it would come whenever and wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator or politician within his radius. “Its tone could be and included supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat.” All of these elements together brought out the spectrum of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare and even if they were attempted, Johnson would anticipate them before they could be successfully delivered. He would move in close, with his face a mere millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows fluctuating, his pockets stuffed with clippings, memos, statistics and other research he had gathered on his target. All the elements LBJ used, "mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy," in “The Treatment” rendered the target stunned, helpless, and obedient. It was this intimidating technique of persuasion that made Johnson one of the most feared politicians of the time and it is this persuasion technique that helped Johnson get control of, basically, whatever he wanted.

Johnson would overwhelm his target physically and mentally with any tool of persuasion he could possibly think of, and he bent a lot of very powerful men to his will in this way. Senators knew that when he went to work on them, he knew everything: their family, their dog, their dog's family, where they went in their free time, their favorite alcoholic drink, whether or not they were cheating on their spouses, and what pork projects they were looking to secure for their states. Robert Dallek described it as "standing under a waterfall".

However, as powerful as he was, Johnson had not forgotten about his ultimate goal: the White House. And with 1960's elections approaching, he was the near-consensus Democratic nominee for President.

Part 4 is coming. We get to talk about the 1960 election!

Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Mar 29, 2018

Enigma
Jun 10, 2003
Raetus Deus Est.

These are excellent and I can't wait for the next installment.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Part 4: The 1960 Presidential Elections (Or: Robert Caro Is Going To Sue My rear end, Guys)

MEANWHILE, IN THE HALL OF JUSTICE...

Lyndon Johnson is at the peak of his power in the Senate. He is the favorite to win the 1960 Democratic nomination for President, and he is practically licking his chops (or jowls) at the prospects of sitting behind the Resolute desk.

OK, before we start, we're gonna talk about hubris for a second. We're also going to assume y'all know what that word means, since this entry's gonna deal with it a LOT.

Franklin Roosevelt fell victim to it in his second term in office when he had enormous Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and attempted to implement his Supreme Court-packing plan. He claimed he was doing it to reduce the workloads of the older Justices, but everyone with a brain knew it was because he was trying to stop them from gutting any more of the New Deal's programs. It hurt him, undeniably, and it led to difficulties in 1938 and 1940's elections.

So why does this matter, you ask? Well, because we are about to see Lyndon Johnson become a victim of excessive pride as well.

The 1960 Elections

Let's set the stage: President Dwight Eisenhower is retiring after two wildly popular terms in office. Democrats smelled an opportunity to take back the big chair, but the guy in their way scared them more than any Republican nominee ever had. They viewed him as an erratic, acid-tongued extremist who would do anything to gain ultimate power.

Wait for it...

...wait for it...



AAAAAAAARRRROOOOOOO!!!!!!!! :nixon:

Richard M. Nixon was young (47) and fresh off two terms as Eisenhower's Vice President. At the time, despite his reputation as a bomb-thrower and Eisenhower's attack dog, he seemed like a lock to succeed his boss, so Democrats knew they had their work cut out for them.

Flash forward to about a year before the elections. Remember, in this time, the Iowa and New Hampshire caucus/primary weren't a thing. Nominees were still chosen in back rooms by guys chewing on thick, evil-smelling cigars. However, that didn't stop a young, enterprising Senator from Massachusetts from hopping into the race with both feet and tirelessly stumping around the country to win popular support for his Presidential bid. After all, we can't really talk about Lyndon Johnson without also talking about this guy:



Senator John F. "Jack" Kennedy had decided that conventional wisdom was for chumps, and instead of simply declaring his candidacy and letting the bosses fight it out at the convention, Kennedy decided to let the people choose their nominee. The primaries were non-binding at the time, but Kennedy knew that if he won them, it'd be extremely hard for the party bosses to ignore him, so on January 2, 1960, he declared his intentions and started campaigning.

Johnson, on the other hand, stayed his hand. He preferred to campaign through people, like his friend House Speaker Sam Rayburn and other powerful Congressional figures. He was relying on conventional wisdom--win the support of these powerful men and they would corral their delegations to vote in his favor at the convention. So he played it coy for months while Kennedy marched through state after state, racking up primary win after primary win. Johnson derisively called him "Sonny Boy" and "Little Boy Blue".

It was a fatal mistake. Johnson eventually declared his intent in June of 1960, but by then the vast majority of state primaries had gone Kennedy's way--and JFK's brother Bobby had gone with him, meeting with city and county bosses and locking down their support. Since they would control the convention delegates, Kennedy's campaign had effectively stolen the levers of power right out from under Johnson's nose.

So what did he do? He hired a private investigator to dig into Kennedy's medical history.

See, if you know anything about JFK, you probably know he suffered from a condition called Addison's disease, a deficiency of the adrenal glands. It weakened his immune system severely and contributed to the difficulties he suffered with his back for almost his whole life. Had this gotten out it would have destroyed Kennedy's political career. Ah, for the days when something like a life-threatening illness could end someone's political career...

So Johnson dug up the story and tried to put it into wide circulation, hoping to kill Kennedy's ambitions in the cradle. He was stymied at every turn, however, by Kennedy Sr.'s money. Joe Kennedy suppressed the story and issued blanket denials, saying Jack was in excellent health.

Unfortunately for Johnson, this entirely true story was dismissed as nothing but sour grapes. It didn't stick.

This snot-nosed little upstart had beaten him to the ultimate prize--and Johnson was livid.. LBJ's benign dislike for John Kennedy was nothing compared to the almost vicious hatred he reserved for Bobby Kennedy, however. He took pleasure in making Bobby look foolish:

quote:

...he had to take every possible opportunity to humiliate him. When Jack sent Bobby to Johnson’s ranch to sound him out on the race, Johnson forced him to go deer hunting, and gave him a powerful shotgun whose recoil knocked him down. Johnson helped him up with the condescending words, “Son, you’ve got to learn to handle a gun like a man.”

But, Kennedy was the nominee, by hook or by crook, and Johnson seethed in defeat.

Then Everything Changed

Johnson, as he once famously said to Clare Boothe Luce, was "a gamblin' man, darlin'." When he realized the nomination was out of reach he began to take a hard look at the number two spot on the ticket. He actually had his staff research how many Presidents had died in office--five out of the last eighteen, as it happens, which to Johnson meant that he had a better-than-20% chance of getting the job. Considering what happened a few years down the road this is especially morbid.

Turned out Johnson wasn't the only one doing math, though. The Kennedy campaign, having secured the nomination for their guy, were now trying to settle on his running mate. Kennedy came with his own set of complications--he was young, he was from a northern state full of liberals, and above all he was Catholic--a fact that many thought would doom him against Nixon. That ruled out guys like Joseph Rauh (D-NY), Hubert Humphrey (D-MN), and Stuart Symington (D-MO).

They knew that with Nixon locking up California, the West, and the Midwest, that they needed the South to hold the line...and for that they'd need someone who understood Southern politics. Someone who could talk to Southern conservatives yet still remain credible to Northern liberals. Someone who could deliver Texas, the biggest electoral prize in the South, in November.

As much as it made Bobby Kennedy want to vomit, the rest of Kennedy's team agreed: they needed Lyndon Johnson.

The offer was made, but Johnson had one condition--Sam Rayburn had to be OK with it too. So, Jack went to Rayburn's hotel suite and charmed him into accepting the deal. It appeared that Lyndon Johnson was going to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

And yet it still wasn't a done deal. Bobby Kennedy was so vehemently opposed to Johnson's presence on the ticket--this man who had said awful things about his father and brother and had been his bete noire in the Senate (when RFK had been a young member of Joe McCarthy's staff) for so long--that he stormed down to Johnson's suite and told him he had to change his mind. He offered LBJ the Democratic National Committee chairmanship, knowing Johnson's fondness for handling the levers of power. But Johnson wasn't having it. He told RFK that Jack would have to call him and rescind the offer himself if he was going to back out.

It made sense electorally, but it created an utterly toxic environment behind the scenes:

quote:

This set a terrible tone for the coming administration. Kennedy’s closest followers felt they had a monster in their midst, and they must do everything in their power to contain him before he sneaked up toward another paralyzing handshake with their leader. Johnson, knowing their attitude and where it came from, responded in kind, since hatred creates a mirroring image in the hated. Referring to Bobby in a conversation with a friend, Johnson said, “I’ll cut his throat if it’s the last thing I do.”

MotherFUCKER.

Well, the 1960 election was a close one, to be sure, but if you know your history you know what happened:



After a night of seesawing leads, Kennedy beat Nixon by just over 100,000 popular votes--slightly more than .1% difference, and 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219 (Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia won 15 electoral votes from Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Alabama. Three guesses why.)

In the space of one night, Lyndon Johnson had become the second most powerful man in the country.

But he didn't feel like it. As John Nance Garner once said, the Vice Presidency wasn't "worth a bucket of warm spit", and LBJ was about to find out why.

End of Part 4.

(I hope you guys are enjoying these. I'm having fun writing them.)

Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Mar 29, 2018

viral spiral
Sep 19, 2017

by R. Guyovich

Alter Ego posted:

(I hope you guys are enjoying these. I'm having fun writing them.)

I'd like to see your take on Dubya.

Enigma
Jun 10, 2003
Raetus Deus Est.

Alter Ego posted:

(I hope you guys are enjoying these. I'm having fun writing them.)

Absolutely

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005

viral spiral posted:

I'd like to see your take on Dubya.

That one will require a few glasses of wine, I think.

IronClaymore
Jun 30, 2010

by Athanatos
I will continue to exclaim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that you should not have rebelled. But we are past all that.

Not all your guys were that great. And, come 2020, I will quoting the gently caress out of "Yes Minister" when it comes to how you are humans, the same as us, and when it comes to people in power it works exactly the same.


Hey, gently caress you guys anyway! We had a prime minister who was drowned/eaten by a shark/abducted by aliens. I'm pretty sure he didn't wear a wig.
And you shouldn't have rebelled anyway. In hindsight you would have been way better off, and free.

(Also this made a lot more sense in my head.)

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005

IronClaymore posted:

I will continue to exclaim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that you should not have rebelled. But we are past all that.

Not all your guys were that great. And, come 2020, I will quoting the gently caress out of "Yes Minister" when it comes to how you are humans, the same as us, and when it comes to people in power it works exactly the same.


Hey, gently caress you guys anyway! We had a prime minister who was drowned/eaten by a shark/abducted by aliens. I'm pretty sure he didn't wear a wig.
And you shouldn't have rebelled anyway. In hindsight you would have been way better off, and free.

(Also this made a lot more sense in my head.)

Most of our guys weren't that great, but they are men, not gods, and most of their flaws are because they weren't gods.

There have been a lot of shitheads in the office, but there have been a lot of good men, and even a few great men.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Alter Ego posted:

(I hope you guys are enjoying these. I'm having fun writing them.)

Hell yeah I am! I've added links to all of them in the OP.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
I might do Boy George next. After reading Jean Edward Smith's biography of him, I'm convinced that we need a refresher course in why George W. Bush is an irredeemable rear end in a top hat and a war criminal.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Alter Ego posted:

I might do Boy George next. After reading Jean Edward Smith's biography of him, I'm convinced that we need a refresher course in why George W. Bush is an irredeemable rear end in a top hat and a war criminal.

Agreed. Especially for younger folks around here. The first election I was really aware of was 2004 and I'm still seething mad about it. Only the GOP could manage to convince people that a draft dodger was more patriotic than a dude who got a friggin' Purple Heart.

I'm so happy that lady with the purple heart bandaid is dead.

gently caress CNN for loving over Dean with their improperly calibrated microphone levels.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005

axeil posted:

I'm so happy that lady with the purple heart bandaid is dead.

:aaa: I did not know this.

My day just got a little brighter.

If I'm going to talk about the Bush administration, though, I might need some help with the legal poo poo, especially when I talk about torture and Abu Ghraib. If you or someone else could mock up a quick summary about John Yoo, the torture memos, and what exactly Cheney and the other shitbags did to justify "enhanced interrogation techniques", I'd be much obliged. I'm not good at that sort of thing.

Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Mar 29, 2018

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Alter Ego posted:

I might do Boy George next. After reading Jean Edward Smith's biography of him, I'm convinced that we need a refresher course in why George W. Bush is an irredeemable rear end in a top hat and a war criminal.

Yes, definitely. I'm very much enjoying your posts!

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Alter Ego posted:

:aaa: I did not know this.

My day just got a little brighter.

If I'm going to talk about the Bush administration, though, I might need some help with the legal poo poo, especially when I talk about torture and Abu Ghraib. If you or someone else could mock up a quick summary about John Yoo, the torture memos, and what exactly Cheney and the other shitbags did to justify "enhanced interrogation techniques", I'd be much obliged. I'm not good at that sort of thing.

I thought it would be easy to find an article summarizing the argument for you but most articles just teach the controversy. The short version is that the very phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques" and water boarding specifically we're both ruled war crimes post WW2 and we executed Nazis and Japanese officers for same. You're counterargument is handwavy bullshit about how we weren't facing uniformed combatant s, but US law also forbids torture and conspiracy to torture. Yoo should be imprisoned, the fact that he is teaching law is a travesty.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Alter Ego posted:

:aaa: I did not know this.

My day just got a little brighter.

If I'm going to talk about the Bush administration, though, I might need some help with the legal poo poo, especially when I talk about torture and Abu Ghraib. If you or someone else could mock up a quick summary about John Yoo, the torture memos, and what exactly Cheney and the other shitbags did to justify "enhanced interrogation techniques", I'd be much obliged. I'm not good at that sort of thing.

Someone put up the Evilweasel signal, as he's the go-to person on any law-related stuff.

I can post a whole bunch about TARP and bank bailouts and such though.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Part 5: Never Heard From Or Seen Again

LAST WEEK, ON SEINFELD...

The Vice Presidency, as many men who have occupied it have said, is a black hole. Daniel Webster, when offered it by his party in the 1840 election, said "I do not propose to be buried until I am dead." Harry Truman said that the Vice President is "a political eunuch".

There is even an old joke that goes something like this: "A woman had two sons. One of them grew up to be a doctor and he journeyed to a far-off land to help sick people. The other became Vice President. Neither was ever heard from or seen again."

The office has gained new favor in these last few decades, as it has contained some very colorful (and some not-so-colorful) personalities. Richard Nixon, for example, used it as a springboard to a nearly-successful Presidential run in 1960, then came back in 1968 to win it all. George H.W. Bush succeeded his boss, Ronald Reagan, giving the country 12 long, difficult, uninterrupted years of Republican hegemony. And who can forget Al "Mighty Moon Worm" Gore or "Diamond Joe" Biden? Point is that it isn't just a place to stick difficult Senators or Congressmen or a way to deliver a certain state in an election anymore. Running mates are, by and large, chosen by how well they mesh with the man (or woman) at the top of the ticket.

What the gently caress does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well, it's where Lyndon Baines Johnson found himself after being sworn in on a cold, snow-covered January morning in 1961. The real prize, however, went to John Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Kennedy proceeded to give one of the most memorable inaugural addresses of all time--one that I would say rivals even FDR's "Fear Itself" inaugural speech or Obama's first inaugural address:



Johnson knew that his duties as Vice President were twofold:

1) Have a pulse
2) Cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate if needed

...and that wasn't gonna work for him. So, just like he did with the role of Majority Leader in 1954, he set out to transform the role of the Vice President.

His first attempt was to try and carve out a sphere of influence in the Senate again. His handpicked successor as Majority Leader, Sen. Mike Mansfield (D-MT), shocked the Democratic caucus when he asked them if Johnson could preside over future caucuses. They were outraged, and rightly so--not only was this a power grab, it could do serious damage to the separation between the executive and legislative branches of the government. Sen. Albert Gore (D-TN), father of the future vice president, said "This caucus is not open to former Senators".

The problem for Gore? Most Senators were bullied into supporting it and by a vote of 46-17 they granted Johnson what he wanted. Even so, Johnson knew that many of those who had voted in his favor still opposed him and it rankled him. "You know the difference between a caucus and a cactus?" he asked. "In a cactus, all the pricks are on the outside."

Johnson was humiliated yet again when, once more attempting to redefine his role in the administration, asked Kennedy to draft an Executive Order that would grant the Vice President's office "general supervision" over certain government agencies such as NASA. It would also ensure that Johnson was CC'd on any important documents given to the President by Cabinet heads and department leaders. Kennedy initially ignored the memo, as he knew Johnson's true motives, but the problem was that Kennedy's people loathed Johnson so much that they decided to teach him a lesson. They leaked what Johnson had done to the press, and compared him to William Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, who had made a similar proposal to Lincoln at the start of his Presidency.

Yeah. Starting to get the picture now?

Nevertheless, Kennedy knew that it was important to, in Johnson's words "keep him inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in". He let LBJ retain his Majority Leader's office in the Capitol, a massive seven-room suite that was referred to derisively as the "Taj Mahal". Johnson was also invited to be present at Cabinet meetings, weekly sessions with House and Senate leaders, and National Security Council meetings so as to keep him in the loop.

JFK also knew that Johnson's pride had been badly wounded when he had taken the number two job. He told his staff in no uncertain terms that they were to treat Johnson with the same respect they treated him, and during photo sessions he would always ask "Where's Lyndon? Get Lyndon in here." Johnson appreciated that, and he told Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he "had been treated better than any other Vice President in history and knew it."

But.

There was still Bobby loving Kennedy. Winning the election hadn't softened RFK's feelings towards Johnson one jot, and it was the same for Johnson. Now, in his capacity as attorney general, Bobby Kennedy looked for ways to humiliate Lyndon Johnson still--and his brother, the President, did little to stop him.

Goodwill Ambassador

Kennedy made Johnson a sort of international goodwill ambassador--almost a mascot for American magnanimity and generosity. Now, you have to understand: Lyndon Johnson had never traveled outside the United States except for a brief stint in the Second World War. He felt ill at ease on most of these trips, and it is well-known that he never traveled without his own mattress (!) and twelve cases of Cutty Sark (!!!!!).

But his craving for center stage and his need to make people like him overwhelmed his awkwardness. Problem was, he wasn't real great at observing customs:

quote:

A four-day trip to Senegal in April 1961 was part comic opera and part serious diplomatic mission. Kennedy's decision to send Lyndon there largely rested on a desire to compete with Communist efforts to woo emerging nations....

...There, he ignored the diplomatic niceties urged upon him by the U.S. Embassy. One morning at 4:30 he and Lady Bird traveled to a fishing village, where the American ambassador refused to leave his limousine. "It was too smelly a town for him," a Johnson traveling companion recalls. The ambassador counseled Johnson against any contact with these people, whom he described as dirty and diseased. But the Vice President strolled among the villagers handing out pens and lighters, shaking hands with everyone, including a few fingerless lepers, and advising the bewildered natives that they could be like Texans, who had increased their annual income tenfold in forty years. Back at the ambassador's residence he kept the household up most of the night sending and receiving cables and irritating the ambassador's wife, who clattered up and down the stairs in a long robe and slippers bringing refreshments on a great silver tray. When he returned to the United States, Johnson told black civil rights leader Roy Wilkins that Senegalese mothers, into whose eyes he looked, were just like Texas mothers; all of them wanted the best for their children. The trip was a microcosm of Johnson's career: a grandiose, temperamental man doing outlandish things simultaneously to get attention and improve the lot of the poor.

Heartless and stupid or endearingly naive? You make the call.

Johnson's foreign trips are chock-full of interesting recollections. You can find more about them in this old NYTimes article, including the time he ordered aide Horace Busby to get off the plane--while it was in the air over open ocean:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/d/dallek-giant.html

But those trips were not an escape from the Kennedys either. I am having trouble finding it at the moment, but there is a documented incident where Robert Kennedy, in a moment of pure vindictiveness, sent an uncoded telegram to the US Embassy ahead of Johnson's visit to some European country that basically said "The Vice President does not speak for the President or his administration". loving embarrassing.

By 1963, despite numerous attempts to rehabilitate the job, Johnson had gone from the most powerful Democrat in Washington to a mere shadow of his former self. He sulked at Cabinet meetings, feeling as though he were a "raven at Kennedy's shoulder". But he bore down and endured the pain--he knew that it was his only way of being John Kennedy's successor in 1968.

Then, on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy went to Dallas.

End of Part 5.

(Part 6 will be the last part, and it will mainly talk about the assassination and the transfer of power. Caro hasn't yet written any material on Johnson's White House years, so I won't either :v: ).

Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Mar 29, 2018

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005

axeil posted:

Someone put up the Evilweasel signal, as he's the go-to person on any law-related stuff.

I can post a whole bunch about TARP and bank bailouts and such though.

No no, do one of these guys yourself! Gimme, I dunno...Carter. Tell us about why Jimmy Carter wasn't a shitlord. We've had too many shitlords, and I know very little about the man before he became President.

Echo Chamber
Oct 16, 2008

best username/post combo

axeil posted:

I'm so happy that lady with the purple heart bandaid is dead.
Source? I need to share with my friends.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Echo Chamber posted:

Source? I need to share with my friends.

http://obits.dallasnews.com/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/obituary.aspx?n=patricia-crawford-peale&pid=186549283&fhid=17462

Alter Ego posted:

No no, do one of these guys yourself!

I don't know enough to do it justice :smith:

Alter Ego posted:

Gimme, I dunno...Carter. Tell us about why Jimmy Carter wasn't a shitlord. We've had too many shitlords, and I know very little about the man before he became President.

Jimmy Carter is probably the only President who you can argue is a Good Person who never did anything really evil.

Echo Chamber
Oct 16, 2008

best username/post combo
This is even better than Harriet Christian's passing.

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

Very relevant and timely article in the Post this morning, related to Alter Ego's excellent series on LBJ:

A ‘Pearl Harbor in politics’: LBJ’s stunning decision not to seek reelection

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005

Deteriorata posted:

Very relevant and timely article in the Post this morning, related to Alter Ego's excellent series on LBJ:

A ‘Pearl Harbor in politics’: LBJ’s stunning decision not to seek reelection

I am so happy you guys are enjoying these :3:

Part 6: My Fellow Americans (Or: Holy poo poo, It Worked)

PREVIOUSLY, ON THE WEST WING...

Lyndon Johnson languishes in the Vice Presidency. Stripped of any meaningful power, stymied time and time again when he tries to expand his role in the Kennedy Administration, he considers resignation.

Then John Kennedy went to Dallas. We're going to start the story here, from the point of view of the Kennedy entourage and motorcade.



Jack and Jackie arrived at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth, Texas late in the evening on November 21, 1963 to enormous, adoring crowds. Behind him lands Air Force Two containing Vice President Lyndon Johnson and newly-elected Texas governor John Connally, as well as Sen. Ralph Yarborough (D-TX). Important note: Connally and Yarborough hate each other so much that Yarborough actually will not travel in the same car as Johnson, Connally's friend. This was Kennedy's mission in Dallas--end the blood feud between the conservative and liberal factions of Texas' Democrats. Part of Kennedy's strategy is forcing Yarborough to ride with Johnson the next day.

At 11:35pm, the Kennedys arrived at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth.

November 22, 1963

8:45 am the next morning. Preparing for a speech 25 minutes later, Kennedy is speaking with Congressman Jim Wright, Sen. Yarborough, Governor Connally, and Vice President Johnson. The purpose is to laud Fort Worth's aviation industry. At 9:10, Kennedy takes his place in the Grand Ballroom at the Hotel Texas.

After the speech, Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent-in-charge, makes a fateful decision: to leave the bubbletop off the President's limo in Dallas if it isn't raining.

11:38 am. Air Force One touches down at Love Field in Dallas after a short hop flight from Fort Worth. The original schedule was for the President's motorcade to arrive in Dealey Plaza around 12:10 pm, followed by an approximately 12:15 pm arrival at the Dallas Business and Trade Mart where Kennedy was scheduled to give another speech. Unfortunately, Air Force One was 9 minutes late touching down and the motorcade did not leave until 11:53 am.

Now, there were approximately 15 cars in the motorcade, most of them cameramen and Secret Service. However, there were two in the middle containing the most important people:

Second car: Driver William Greer (US Secret Service), Agent-in-charge Roy Kellerman, Nellie Connally (wife of John Connally), Texas Governor John Connally, First Lady Jackie Kennedy, and President John Kennedy

Fifth car: Driver Hurchel Jacks (Texas State Police), Agent-in-charge (VP Detail) Rufus Youngblood, Senator Ralph Yarborough, Second Lady Lady Bird Johnson, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson


Let's skip ahead.

At 12:29 pm, the Presidential limo entered Dealey Plaza. Nellie Connally said to the President, over the roars of the cheering crowds, "Mr. President, you certainly can't say that Dallas doesn't love you!" Kennedy grinned that trademark grin of his at her.

60 seconds later the first shot rang out from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (where George Amberson was waiting, amirite? :haw: )

The first bullet hit Kennedy in the upper back and came out through his throat; the second and third, which were much closer together, blew open the right side of his skull. The shots also hit Governor Connally; he suffered a bullet wound in his upper-right back just behind the armpit. One rib was shattered and his right wrist was broken in seven places.

Yeah.

So where was Lyndon Johnson during all this, you ask? Well, we know that he was in the fifth car in the motorcade. When the shots rang out, Agent Rufus Youngblood grabbed Johnson and threw him to the floor of the car, leaping on top of him and shielding him. Both the President's and Vice President's cars sped towards Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. There were initial reports that Johnson had been injured too, as well as rumors that he had suffered another heart attack, but they obviously turned out to be false.

When he arrived at Parkland Johnson was immediately surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service who tried to get him to go back to Washington at once. Johnson refused; he wanted to know what Kennedy's condition was.

At 1:00 pm CST, Kennedy was pronounced dead and Johnson was not informed until 20 minutes later. Acting Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff came to Johnson and asked him if it was OK if the pronouncement be made public. While he directed Kilduff to wait until after he had left the hospital, according to his wife, Lyndon Johnson did not panic or lose composure. He simply said, "We must get to Air Force One."

The 36th President of the United States

Secret Service details were immediately granted for Johnson's two daughters, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines, and it was decided that he would leave on Air Force One rather than Air Force Two due to the President's plane having better communications equipment. No one knew anything at this point; the murderer was still at large.

At 1:15, approximately an hour before Johnson would take the oath of office, a Dallas police officer named J.D. Tippit encountered a man who matched a witness' description of the man who had fired the shots from the sixth floor of the School Book Depository. He pulled his patrol car up alongside the man, who was walking away from him on the sidewalk. When Tippit exited his car, the suspect, a former Marine and suspected Communist Lee Harvey Oswald shot Tippit four times, killing him. Oswald fled the scene, but he was arrested 25 minutes later at the Texas Theater.

2:30 pm CST. Johnson arrives and boards Air Force One, and federal district judge Sarah Hughes is called to swear him in. The scene aboard the plane is a panoply of shocked and saddened faces.



Seen at Johnson's left is Jackie Kennedy, with her husband's brains STILL SPLATTERED ON HER CLOTHES. To make matters even worse, the judge Johnson called didn't know the exact wording of the Presidential Oath of Office. No one aboard did. Consequently Johnson had to place what was perhaps the most awful, awkward phone call of his life--he had to call Bobby Kennedy, the murdered President's brother and the sitting Attorney General, a man he hated, to ask him for the exact wording.

At 2:38 pm Central Standard Time on November 22, 1963, Lyndon Johnson achieved his lifelong ambition: he was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States of America.

But this wasn't how he wanted to get it.

_________________________________

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, I really do. Robert Caro, I'll see you in court.

I would have done a writeup on the Warren Commission but I really want someone else to pick up this ball and run with it. Extended reading for those of you who wanna do extra credit ( :eng101: )

Lyndon Johnson might have found himself out of a job if Kennedy had survived the trip.

Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Mar 31, 2018

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Next time, on "The Presidents": George W. Bush: Misunderstood Retard, or Shitlord?

Mia Wasikowska
Oct 7, 2006

If you're going to talk about W, you have to talk about mercs

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.
i have been doing a histographic paper on Nixons legacy? any tips or sugestions. here is all the sources i have used so far.

all the president men by woodward and bernstein


all the volumes of The Nixon Watch by John F oseborne


Richard Nixon memoirs.


the nixon trilogy by stephen Ambrose(probably using the last two books more)


Nixonland by pearlstein


Invisible Bridge by Pealstein


Richard Nixon: the life by John A. Farrell


president Nixon:alone in the white house by richard reeves.


Reinventing Richard Nixon by Daniel Frick(talks alot about the museum and how the media rehabilitated his image)


and Being Nixon: a man divided by evan thomas(who wrote a great book on Eisenhower)


i am trying to find the source/article that first talks about him killing the paris peace talks. also any other suggestions.

Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
Richard Nixon: A Life, by John Farrell

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, by Robert Dallek

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Alter Ego posted:

Richard Nixon: A Life, by John Farrell

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, by Robert Dallek

thanks.

my basic outline is, he was viewed as a giant piece of poo poo after he resigned but ambrose and his museum slowly made him sound decent through various bullshit and decorum. most works now treat him as either a evil gently caress who took lessons from nixon or a weird complicated rear end in a top hat.

Echo Chamber
Oct 16, 2008

best username/post combo
Not that I find this particularly mind-blowing, but I frequently come back to this paragraph from this textbook I read in college when talking about Nixon's partial rehabilitation.

I also use this as some context for Dubya's charm offensive with liberals/moderates since Trump took office.

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Fritz Coldcockin
Nov 7, 2005
OK, guys, guess what time it is?

Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, Or: Molly Ivins, I'll See You In Court



GUHHHHH IM A WAR PRESIDENT YAAAAAAY

(DISCLAIMER: I hate George W. Bush and I will make no apologies for my bias in these articles.)

George W. Bush has experienced somewhat of an image rehabilitation in the last 8-9 years, mostly because he did exactly the opposite of what most ex-Presidents do--he shut his mouth and said nothing about current events, crawling back to his ranch in Texas after leaving a planet-sized mess for Barack Obama to clean up.

However, his approval rating is now a net positive. Yeah. That's right. After not being in the black since 2004, Dubya is now viewed favorably by a majority of Americans:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/22/politics/george-w-bush-favorable-poll/index.html

61%. SIXTY-ONE loving PERCENT. The man who let New Orleans drown, tried to destroy Social Security, covered up the Mark Foley pedophilia ring, sanctioned torture at Abu Ghraib, started two unwinnable wars in the Middle East and cut taxes until we bled red ink is at 61% approval, nine years removed from his Presidency.

Jean Edward Smith, the renowned Presidential biographer, recently wrote an excellent, even-handed biography on Boy George that I suggest you read if you ever have the time: https://www.amazon.com/Bush-Jean-Edward-Smith-ebook/dp/B0176M3Z8I/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1522757194&sr=8-15&keywords=Bush

It lacks any personal interviews with the man because Smith once wrote a book critical of W's daddy, so he was told that W himself wasn't going to give the book the time of day. In some respects, Dubya is no less petty than Trump, especially when referring to people he thinks might have criticized his father back in the day.

Hold On A Minute

That 61% is ridiculously high, but in some respects, it's...understandable. What we have now is SO much worse than George W. on his worst day. If I had to guess, I'd have to say about 10-15% of those people are just comparing him favorably to President Angry Orange Mangoblin. Since he's been speaking up about the worst of Donald Trump's Muslim-demonizing, it's probably helping his case. Is it wrong to do so? Perhaps.

But after reading Smith's book, I thought we could use a refresher course on why George W. Bush isn't a figure worthy of redemption. Regardless of how bad Donald Trump is (and he's loving bad, yo), George W. Bush--along with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice--should be rotting in cells at the Hague.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves! How did we get here, you ask? How did the eldest scion of a rich, politically powerful family develop such severe daddy issues? How did he get from drunk frat boy to President? And how did we get from a budget surplus and a healthy economy to the utter, utter shitpile we found ourselves in in 2008?

Well, it all began in a small town in Connecticut called New Haven.

Horrible Beginnings

On a cold, storm-tossed night in July 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut, Barbara Bush birthed the abomination known as George W. Bush. That's right, the sonuvabitch isn't even a native-born Texan. That whole cowboy thing? An act. All a loving act.

Here is Bush plotting world domination with his advisors and enablers:



OK, whatever, he was kind of a cute baby.

I won't go into Dubya's early life. Suffice to say he was brought up like every other rich kid--spoiled rotten and with a silver spoon up his rear end. It is important to note one thing, though: W's early years are not marked by any kind of ambition whatsoever. He was an irresponsible rear end who planned to spend the rest of his life living off Daddy's money, getting drunk, wrecking cars, and just being the requisite massive fuckup kid every rich family has.

And, much like all the other scions of rich families, he went to expensive private schools and pissed that away too. He attended Phillips-Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then enrolled at Yale as a legacy in 1964. His daddy and granddaddy were both Yalies, as well as belonging to a secret society known as the Skull & Bones Society, consisting of some of the children of the most rich and powerful men in the country. These drunken moronic frat boys would go on to become politicians and captains of industry themselves. Scary thought, right?

No, I'm not making that up. They called themselves "Bonesmen". Dubya was nothing if not a social creature--he was leader of every intramural sport league, a member of every club, and oh yeah--a goddamn cheerleader:



And they had the gall to call John Kerry "effeminate". Fuckers.

The Air National Guard

One of the many lovely, lovely stories from W's early life is his purported "service" in the Texas Air National Guard. See, being a rich shitfucker gave Dubya an out from going to Vietnam, much like every other kid whose daddy was rich and/or politically connected in those days. So, instead of actually serving his country, George decided to join the Air National Guard in May of 1968 and become a pilot. Just like his Daddy (except at least George Sr. had served in the Second World War).

The problem? Well, he didn't show up when he was supposed to, and in 2004, when he was running for reelection, a fake document controversy surrounding his time in the Guard would end the career of a venerable CBS journalist: https://theintercept.com/2015/10/27/george-w-bush-was-awol-but-whats-truth-got-to-do-with-it/

(I know the Intercept is poo poo now but that's a good article.) Long story short, someone forged a bunch of documents and fed them to CBS, causing Dan Rather to get fired over a story that was otherwise most likely true. gently caress Karl Rove for this forever.

Drunk And Disorderly

W liked booze. A lot. When he ran for Governor of Texas and later on for President he'd describe the time in his life before his 40s as his "irresponsible and nomadic youth". Most of us would call it "spending your days drunk off your rear end, getting arrested, and forcing Daddy to bail you out". No wonder Poppy Bush liked Jeb more.

In 1976, though, it caught up with him. He got clipped for a DUI in Kennebunkport, ME, near his family's summer compound. He paid a fine and had his license suspended briefly. Poppy Bush tried to keep Dubya occupied with a number of jobs in the oil industry in Odessa, where the family had moved to years earlier, putting him on board after board as the companies went belly-up over and over, but nothing seemed to keep George from being a constant ne'er-do-well.

Saved!

In 1986, W woke up with a massive hangover after his 40th birthday celebration, and he finally realized that he needed help. He'd met with the Reverend Billy Graham in 1985, and eventually he became a Baptist--an evangelical Christian, the most insufferable, hypocritical kind of Christian. It changed the entire course of his life.

___

Now, I have to backtrack for a second, because I skipped over something important. In 1978, Bush ran for Congress against Democrat Kent Hance. In that race, Hance did what Dubya would spend the rest of his political career doing--mercilessly flogging his Texas roots and his homespun country-fried nature. Being a newbie at politics, Dubya would go on to lose the only political campaign he'd ever lose--Hance got 53% to his 47%. After that race, Dubya had a George Wallace-esque awakening, only without the racism: he swore he'd never be outdone like that again. It would shape his campaigns for Governor and President years later.

I could go on and on about the number of oil companies Bush ran in the intermediate years between 1978 and 1989 but we'd be here all day if I did. Suffice to say that in 1989, a year after his father was elected President, Dubya became the managing general partner for a group of investors who bought the Texas Rangers baseball team. As Molly Ivins said, "his first move was to trade Sammy Sosa".

It's important to note that even now, Dubya had few designs on politics. He wanted to be baseball commissioner, and he was actually positioned fairly well to do it in 1989. However, the events of the next few years would change all that.

In 1992, as we all know, Poppy Bush lost his bid for reelection to the Man from Hope, and bizarrely, it kindled in W a desire for revenge. The family believed that Clinton had tricked the nation and poisoned them against Poppy, and W was no exception. For all the years he couldn't win his father's approval or affections, righting this particular wrong seemed to to drive Dubya after that.

But he knew he couldn't go straight from the Rangers to the White House. He'd need a political resume first, and that meant the Texas governorship.

Governor McFuckinretard

As I explained in my series on LBJ, Texas has a long, long history of electing unqualified morons and segregationist pricks to the governor's office. For once, however, they had bucked the trend. Governor Ann Richards had been elected in 1990, and she was awesome. Seriously. Read more about Ann Richards, I beg you. Texas squandered her. She was absolutely incredible.

In 1994, her opponent was George W. Bush. People never gave him a chance--Ann Richards was a born fighter. Former schoolteacher, Baylor grad and Democratic Party heavyweight, Richards had a way with words. She had a particularly popular rhetorical device where she would list off a series of events in the last 10 years in Texas, then finish it with "Where Was George?", the idea being to imply that W was a carpetbagging rich boy.

However, W had already become intimate friends with the man who would shape not only this campaign, but his two Presidential campaigns as well: Karl Rove.



gently caress Karl Rove with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. Seriously. This man poisoned political discourse forever. He normalized Nixonian dirty tricks, and he ran the most underhanded, scheming, filthy goddamn races in political history (before Trump and his cabal of shitheads came to town, that is).

And when Rove went to work on Ann Richards, there was no amount of money that was going to save her. Rumors circulated that Richards was a lesbian because she'd appointed gay and lesbian people to state government jobs (the horror!). They also managed to make hay out of Richards' veto of a bill that would allow for concealed carry in the state, casting her as out-of-touch.

Suffice to say it worked. Bush defeated Richards in 1994 handily--53% to 45%. It was a hatchet job of the highest order, but Bush was governor...and the fun was just beginning.

Ugh. gently caress George W. Bush. End of Part 1.

In Part 2, we discuss the hosed-up Election of 2000.

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